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Journalism about pwnage

RuneScape Review Part 1: About The Game

This is going to be a four-part review. Keep checking back for the next three parts!

RuneScape. You’ve probably most likely definitely heard of it. It’s a free-to-play 3D browser fantasy-themed MMORPG. It’s been around a looonnnng time too. It’s developed by Jagex, who have made numerous browser-based games.

Now, how about what kind of game RuneScape actually is? It’s a very open game, featuring 25 skills total, 16 being available to free players, 9 being available to premium members. The members only skills are: Fletching, Construction, Farming, Agility, Herblore, Hunter, Slayer, Summoning and Thieving. You are free to level any skill you want, and you can do everything if you want. There’s no classes or professions, so your not limited in anyway what skills you want to train, unless they’re member skills, which in that case you would have to become a member to use those skills. And skills cover a huge range of activities, from fishing, hunting, mining, runecrafting, trading, smelting, pottery, farming, fighting, raiding dungeons with friends, and magic and archery. Pretty impressive, huh?

Fighting a huge boss in the dungeons under Daemonheim.

There are lots of quests, and some popular activities include trading in GE (the Grand Exchange, a player-run economy and market. It’s basically the Wall st. of RuneScape. And there are no requirements whatsoever on trading. You can trade as soon as you start playing!) and Dungeoneering, which is where you go into the dungeons below Daemonhiem, which is an ancient castle full of treasures and dangers. You can bring your friends, which is actually recommended, because you’ll have some backup then.

One downside, though, is that you can’t bring anything in, or out of the dungeons, which is a strange restriction, because usually the entire point of going into a dungeon in an RPG is to get loot, and people who play D&D and Diablo and pretty much any other RPG can understand my confusion and annoyance. How this fits into the story is that there is a “strange aura” emanating from Deamonheim, and so basically the dungeons are under quarantine.

This is a great place for “skilling,” which is RuneScape slang for leveling non-combat skills, and of course fighting skills. This is a great reason to bring friends, especially if you don’t have high crafting skills, as your using all the resources you find down there to make weapons and supplies.

A huge new update that was added to the game recently, is the Runespan update. It brings a new dimension to the game, called, well, Runespan. In Runespan, you can “siphon” runes from creatures and Rune Storms.

Me siphoning runes from an Air Cyclone, which is a type of magical storm.

It is a totally safe activity, and the main thing is to level up your Runecrafting skill, which is a good skill used to make money and a great skill that’s a part of any good wizards arsenal of knowledge. Runespan is made up of a bunch of floating islands, which are devided into three levels. The first level and part of the second level are accessible by free players, the rest is reserved for members.

Runespan is made up of many floating islands.

In RuneScape, magic is casted using different types of runes, including elemental runes such as Fire, Water, Earth and Air runes. On my old character (my second one) I used to make and trade runes at GE, and made a huge amount of money from this. Wizardry is a career option for players, and even free-to-play players. It consists of many skills too.

Currently, new players get a 14-day free trial premium membership, although they don’t have access toeverything a full member has. But, if you upgrade to full member before your 14-day trial expires, you still keep the time, while extending it by the amount of time you added, all while being upgraded to full member, meaning no content in the game is off limits for you. Although, if you play on a free-to-play World, (server) and you attempt to use member content, such as an agility course or members-only items, it will tell you that you have to move to a members server.

Now, should you or shouldn’t you upgrade to a membership? Well, it is only $7.95 US, and you get it for a month. It’s available from Walmart and GameStop in the form of a prepaid card, making it safer to access. You’ll have plenty to do as a f2p player, but you’ll have five times as much if you’re a member.